Brian Malow is "The Science Comedian"

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Brian Malow is "The Science Comedian"

Caught a fun article this weekend in the online version of our local paper the San Francisco Chronicle, about stand-up comedian Brian Malow, aka The Science Comedian. Malow has crafted an act that is part comedy and part science education, letting fly jokes that may require the listeners to have at least passed high-school physics. From the article:

While his show is very rational and based on hard science, Malow cleverly infuses it with an abstract or surreal comic twist. Like observing that whenever his mother would lose weight, his father would gain weight, and then linking the two by a fundamental law of nature."It was like the Conservation of Mass within our family," says Malow, adding that "fat can neither be created nor destroyed."

When diverted from the comedy club circuit, Malow is really in his element performing on college campuses, for tech corporations or at museums and science conventions. There, he geeks up the routines with technical zingers that can reduce a stoic audience to tears - which isn't easy, when you're facing rows of serious-minded scientists from the American Chemical Society, the National Academy of Sciences orNASA. But where else could jokes about naked singularities, entropy or virology be truly appreciated?

On the one hand, it's great to see someone infusing the entertainment they're creating with a little bit of intelligent, scientific information. On the other hand, it's kind of a shame that Brian is being singled out because of how unique a concept it is. Hopefully he'll play a part in getting science education back into popularity.